New York City to Chicago via the #51 Cardinal, 28 hours 20 minutes
It’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m in front of my son’s apartment in Brooklyn waiting for an Uber. I’m heading to Moynihan Train Station in Manhattan. Mary and I flew to New York and had a wonderful visit. She is flying home and I’m taking the train, complete with my Amtrak cooler jam-packed with food for my ride home. My 100+ rail-hour trip will be a meandering one traveling through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington State. The seed for this trip was planted twenty-five years ago on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. We stayed one night in Winslow AZ in a beautifully restored 1930s hotel called La Posada. In its heyday wealthy guests would travel by train, arriving at a station on the hotel grounds. When I saw Amtrak pull up to the entrance of the hotel, I said to Mary, “That’s on my bucket list!”
The Uber ride to Moynihan station is uneventful and the train is on time. I’m quickly in my seat.The passenger car model I’m riding in is called the Viewliner. It is a single-level car with luggage storage limited to the rack above the seats and there’s only one bathroom per car. Although the legroom is OK, it’s not the glorious amount that the bigger Superliner trains provide. Virtually all of the routes east of the Mississippi River use these smaller cars due to low height clearances in several of the East Coast cities. The train I’m on is only half-full at the moment and I’m comfortable, but if it were completely full it would not be pleasant, especially with my bulky luggage. This confirms my thought that off-peak (October through April) is the best time to plan my trips.
There are faster train routes to Chicago, but I’m on the Cardinal because I want to see the mountains of West Virginia. We head south through Philadelphia and Washington DC, then southwest through West Virginia. My unrealistic expectations of the scenery do not match reality. I thought I would see (and was hoping for) coal mines, hollers and tarpaper shacks. What I see instead is a serene setting of beautiful rolling hills with fall colors in full swing. Maybe the stereotypes in my brain still exist, but it certainly isn’t the only thing here. The sun sets and I fall asleep near Ashland KY, waking up the next morning near Indianapolis IN. I have an empty seat next to me (Yay off-peak!) which helps considerably.
We pull into Chicago on time at 10am, which is wonderful! It is not unusual for Amtrak to be late and I have a 4-hour window to take a shower and go to a diner for lunch. Chicago’s Union Station is a work of art. Built in 1925 after ten years of construction, it is a reminder of the glory days of train travel. I head straight to the Metropolitan Lounge and use my lounge pass to gain entrance. The lounge is mainly for people traveling in sleeper cars. For people traveling coach like me, it is possible to buy a single-use lounge pass using Amtrak points. The rules around this seem to change frequently. I am told on this visit that with a lounge pass I can no longer store my bags in the luggage room. I’m fine with that. In my luggage I have a padlock and bicycle cable just for this purpose. I use them to secure the luggage to a seat in the lounge and then take a long, hot shower. There are two separate shower rooms at the Metropolitan Lounge, complete with an abundance of towels and a changing bench. First class!
Chicago to Winslow via the #3 Southwest Chief, 30 hours 36 minutes
It is so nice to be back on an Amtrak Superliner! I will be on this train for 30 hours, so the extra legroom will be appreciated. Someone is sitting next to me, but in our conversation I learn that she is getting off just before sunset. My odds of having an empty seat next to me are looking good! I sleep for over 9 hours, settling on the two different sleeping positions that I can tolerate for 3-hour stretches. One is the fetal position, curled up on both seats with the leg rests extended to make a larger sleeping surface. The other position is stretching out on my back as straight as possible, with my feet on the floor closest to the aisle and my head up near the window. I create a ramp with clothing and memory foam pads to fill in the gaps.
I head to the Sightseer lounge car for a change of scenery and strike up a conversation with a woman from Switzerland. She is on a 3-week tour of the U.S. with her best friend. They have been buddies for over 50 years. Conversation drifts to American food and how bad most of our store-bought bread is. I tell her about making my own bread on my train trips. Her friend, who is overhearing our conversation starts to laugh, and the woman I’m talking to has a slightly embarrassed look on her face and says “I brought my own sourdough starter and 21 kilos of flour from Switzerland.” That’s fifty pounds! Sightseer lounges are a great place to mingle. They are a part of all Superliner runs except for the Empire Builder route between Portland and Spokane.
The train pulls into Albuquerque Station at 3pm for a thirty minute “fresh air and smoke break”. Outside, I talk with a man who is traveling with his 75 year-old father. “He doesn’t get out of the house much, so I want to give him an adventure.” They are on their way to Los Angeles. We talk about what it’s like traveling by rail. “I love it.” He says. “I’m ADHD and it helps to slow my mind down. It reminds me of when I was with a group, river rafting in the Grand Canyon. At first I was always pushing it, trying to get to the next place as fast as possible. Then, I realized the river is just going to do its thing, and the best thing for me to do was go with the flow.”
The train pulls in to Winslow Station at 7:30pm. I had dinner from my cooler on the train, but want to celebrate my arrival to this wonderful hotel. I head to the bar and strike up a conversation with another couple who have been coming here for years. They have a place in Santa Fe and another in Palm Desert, and this is their waypoint. While sipping my Manhattan our conversation quickly drifts to food, and from there to bread. Elliott says “I love baking bread! My favorite has a double rise and thick crust with rosemary and coarse salt. I coat it with egg-white so that the salt and herbs stick.” Looks like bread conversations will be the theme for this trip. Walking to my room I hear “Hi Bob!” from behind me. I turn around and see two smiling couples. On the train, they overheard me talking about La Posada and mentioned to me that they would be staying here too. We exchanged names on the train, but unfortunately I forgot theirs. Looks like they remembered mine.
I wake up next morning from a fitful sleep. I slept better on the train! After breakfast it’s time to tour the hotel. La Posada was built by the Harvey Company in 1930 and was part of the Harvey House hotel and restaurant chain offering high quality food and lodging. The chain had its roots in the 1870s when Fred Harvey contracted with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fee railroad to offer food and lodging at its passenger terminals along the route from Chicago to Santa Fe. The West was wild back then, and Harvey capitalized on this by offering a more refined experience. A big part of this experience was the staff. Harvey hired educated women from the East Coast to waitress at his restaurants. Over the years the staff became known as the Harvey Girls. It sounds sexist today, but he offered a very good opportunity for young women who wanted to move West and be independent. Harvey died in 1901, but under his sons’ management the business continued to prosper, building more and nicer hotels and offering lots more employment opportunities for women. When it came time to build in Winslow AZ, they asked their long-time female architect, Mary Colter, to build something special that reflected the culture and history of the area. She designed what she herself described as her masterpiece; a sprawling, hacienda-style Spanish Colonial Revival that looked more like an established wealthy family-home than a hotel. She used different building materials throughout the structure to give the impression that the “house” had been added on to over the years. Even though the building was completed right at the beginning of the Great Depression it was a success. Famous movie stars would come by rail for vacation, using the hotel’s elegant limo service to take them to the Grand Canyon and other natural wonders in the area.
Touring the hotel and grounds, on several different occasions I would hear a “Hi Bob” from one or all four of my train companions. The four of them appear to be very good friends, and they are having a good time. I have carnitas with polenta and fire roasted corn for dinner, which is reminiscent of the meal I had here twenty-five years ago. I’m glad I put this on my bucket list. Leaving the hotel that evening, I see the two couples off in the distance, talking and laughing at an outdoor table at the restaurant. They are a long ways away, but they recognize me and we all wave. I walk down to the passenger loading zone and wait for the train. Just as it arrives I hear “Goodbye Bob!” from behind me. I turn around and see the four of them ten feet away, waving and smiling. They had walked all the way here from the restaurant just to give me this surprise! I laugh, walk up to them, shake the men’s hands and give the women hugs. As I head to the train I turn around and say “I love you guys”. What a perfect ending to my visit!
